I wouldn't say the Earth is in free float through space. That would imply that we could float out of our Solar System. One major reason why we aren't floating out of our Solar System is because of the Sun's pull which causes the Earth to to have an elliptical orbit around the Sun.

If it were in a free float we'd probably be in Andromeda's by now.

Not to mention the bible also claims that the earth is the center of the universe. Galileo proved the bible wrong on that claim and he received a lot of criticism from the church at his time, and well, his findings still hold true today.

Also, there aren't "innumerable" amounts of stars. It is estimated that there is anywhere between 1022 and 1024 stars in the universe.

You have received your final warning for trolling. Quit it. Now. After that, an apology would be good manners, but not necessary. You should not need an adult to help you behave honestly and with moral sense, even at your young age.

You never have much to say, actually. This is a discussion board though, so you might want to change your approach. Unless you enjoy dumping on forums and pretending everything you dump is correct and unquestionable?

As for the image you posted above, the one true beauty of science is that it does change when new information comes along. Religion does not. Religion thinks it already has the truth, and continues to try to convince modern humans that it is right. Science does no such dishonest thing. Science changes when it discovers it was wrong. Honorable.

Very interesting chart, Shin. You sure sparked my interest. So I went and took a little peek at the first item on the chart, Isaiah 40 22.

This is what it says. He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

I grabbed the New International Version. Not sure if you have a preference, but there are a whole bunch of other translations options there. They are pretty similar. http://bible.cc/isaiah/40-22.htm

It doesn’t say globe. It says circle. But you are clearly a pretty worldly guy. You speak English with native fluency, but your profile says you live in Portugal. So you know how language works. Even with two languages as closely related as English and Portuguese cannot translate something exactly. So who knows what the original translation really said? Not you. Not me. It very well might have said globe. But none of the translations seem to think that it said globe.

So your scriptures were translated into English directly from Latin. And to Latin from Hebrew or Amharic, or whatever the original language was. And a funny thing happens when you translate something and then translate it again and then translate it again. Especially, from really different language families.

Then I translated the Japanese back into English, to see how it looked. And this is what I got.

He is the earth's circumference is happening on the people, and the grasshoppers. He is the canopy of the heavens to extend in order to live, and 10 tons of them out.

This is how your Bible works. It works like a game of whisper down the lane, in which every phrase has been translated and translated and translated, and no one really knows what it meant to say originally.

Of course there are some folks who study the original languages of the scriptures, and probably understand all of this more than we do. A few of them wrote about this very verse on the webpage that I cited earlier. One said:

The circle of the earth - Or rather, "above" (?? ?al) the circle of the earth. The word rendered 'circle' (???? chu?g) denotes "a circle, sphere, or arch"; and is applied to the arch or vault of the heavens, in Proverbs 8:27; Job 22:14. The phrase 'circle,' or 'circuit of the earth,' here seems to be used in the same sense as the phrase orbis terrarum by the Latins; not as denoting a sphere, or not as implying that the earth was a globe, but that it was an extended plain surrounded by oceans and mighty waters. The globular form of the earth was then unknown; and the idea is, that God sat above this extended circuit, or circle; and that the vast earth was beneath his feet.He doesn’t seem to think it is a globe at all.Another said

It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth,.... Or, "the globe (z)" of it; for the earth is spherical or globular: not a flat plain, but round, hung as a ball in the air; here Jehovah sits as the Lord and Sovereign; being the Maker of it, he is above it, orders and directs its motion, and governs all things in it: Kimchi rightly observes, that the heavens are the circle of the earth, which is the centre of them, and around which they are; and so it signifies, that the Lord sits or dwells in the heavens, from whence he beholds the children of men: and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; or "locusts (a)"; as one upon a very great eminence looking down beholds creatures as exceeding small and little; Now this guy uses the word “globe” but seems to think the earth is the center of the heavens.

Even the experts can’t agree. You hang on every word, of this ancient document, translated and translated and translated again, from languages that do not even exist in the same form today. Do you ever wonder if “He is the canopy of the heavens to extend in order to live, and 10 tons of them out?”

It is possible that your very favorite passages are really just gobbledygook. And you are basing your whole life on them.

Some idea of the sphericity of the Earth seems to have been known to both Parmenides and Empedocles in the 5th century BC, and although the idea cannot reliably be ascribed to Pythagoras, it may, nevertheless have been formulated in the Pythagorean school in the 5th century BC. After the 5th century BC, no Greek writer of repute thought the world was anything but round.

So you're wrong.

3. "Science now - the Earth is a sphere".

The Earth isn't a sphere. It's flattened at the Poles and bulges at the Equator, so it's an oblate spheroid. (If the Bible had said that, it would have been quite impressive - but it doesn't).

You know Gnu, I was trying to give the guy the benefit of the doubt. I mean, it *could* have said globe. Translations are funny that way. But I think we all kind of suspect it didn't.

Shin wrote yesterday about superior genetics of the people who lived in the pre-Moses period. Now I suppose it is *possible* that some of the genetic testing that took place prior to Moses demonstrated stronger genes. And it is possible that all evidence of those genetic tests was subsequently lost. But I think we all kind of suspect that didn't happen either.

But it is such a pretty chart. Some of it must be true. Emily has already discredited the free flow of earth and the innumerable stars.

Maybe the wind stuff is true. Maybe people who didn't watch wind blow sand across the desert didn't notice that it sometimes went in little cyclone type shapes....

Or maybe it is all just gobbledygook, written thousands of years ago, translated over and over again, so that the original meaning is blurred beyond anything its original authors intended, or would have understood.

Over on IGI a few weeks ago, Shin started a thread supposedly proving God, and the first link he provided (concerning NASA and the missing day) was to an urban legend site. When we pointed out that the site was actually debunking the legend, he said he didn't care, he believed it anyway...

Here:

Quote

Quote

SHIN, even though it's been busted as false, do you still believe that NASA discovered proof of a day the sun stood still?

Yes. Am I stupid for believing that? & if I am, who has the right to judge me?

Uuuhhhmmm Em... Quesi... I don't think u will like what I found yesterday...

As you know, I'm portuguese & portuguese along with italian is the closest language there is to latin. Out of curiosity I went & read the passage on Isaiah that my pic discusses. U won't believe what I found

In portuguese the word used is not circle, it's the word "cúpula" & in Job 22:14 it's the word "abóbada". Here are their respective translations into english. Have fun.

Alright, first off, this is blatant cherry-picking. There are things in the Bible which contradict the list here (such as a reference to the "circle of the Earth" in Isaiah 40:22; it clearly depends on the translation used), and there are other things which are flat-out wrong in the Bible (such as referring to bats as 'fowl", birds, in Leviticus 11: 13, 19).

Secondly, even granting the accuracy of your "science then" statements for the sake of argument, when were those conclusions reached? Science has been around for quite a while, and it's a little simplistic to refer to "science then" and expect people to know what you're talking about. Are you talking about the ancient Greeks, or science as of the Enlightenment, or what?

That being said, I am completely unimpressed with your 'list'. I expect more than a generic list of things that the Bible supposedly got right. I also expect better than citing an unnamed translation which clearly has been influenced by the discoveries science made.

You seem to be implying that we should rely on the Bible for knowledge. Even leaving aside the inconsistencies in the Bible and all the things it just plain got wrong, it would still be foolish to rely on some kind of divine revelation for knowledge. By doing so, you only ever get what the revelator chooses to tell you, meaning you're missing out on anything that got left out.

Uuuhhhmmm Em... Quesi... I don't think u will like what I found yesterday...

As you know, I'm portuguese & portuguese along with italian is the closest language there is to latin. Out of curiosity I went & read the passage on Isaiah that my pic discusses. U won't believe what I found

In portuguese the word used is not circle, it's the word "cúpula" & in Job 22:14 it's the word "abóbada". Here are their respective translations into english. Have fun.

PS : I guess this just shows how much better the europeans are at translating than brits or yanks

Cool. I happen to speak a couple of romance languages myself. I'm kind of guessing that abobada[1] is the word they used for canopy, not circle. I'd love to see the Portuguese scriptures, if you would like to share.

But your scriptures weren't written in Portuguese or Latin. They were written in Ancient Hebrew and Amharic and some Greek, I think. Then translated into Latin.

^ Is that all you can come up with, to attempt at discrediting the undeniable truths shown in the picture? Not gonna cut it. Try harder...

It's a quote from the bible saying the world doesn't move, which is not scientifically accurate. You see what you're doing is picking out quotes that you can interpret to mean the bible is making a scientific statement or referring to something science has acknowledged to be true, but missing out the inaccuracies in the bible. Of course, the quotes Emily posted could just be metaphors, which is the usual get out clause folks like to use - when it supports their argument it's a clear factual statement and we're clearly not offering our own interpretations but when it doesn't, it's figurative. This is the game people have played with us many times before, please don't be one of those people, I want to play a much more honest game, one with no dirty tricks.

« Last Edit: December 18, 2012, 05:47:24 PM by Seppuku »

Logged

“It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet” - Miyamoto MusashiWarning: I occassionally forget to proofread my posts to spot typos or to spot poor editing.

Now my Portuguese isn't great, but it seems to me that, after saying it is quite a controversial verse, it goes on to say that the original Hebrew word was hhug and that some folks translated it as circle. There is some discussion of plates and discs. It goes on to talk about the politics of the Catholic church and Columbus's journey to find India, and how the politics of a particular era may influence the translation of a particular word.

The second paragraph goes on and on about the controversy, and some book by a guy named Davidson, who argued that the word could "also" be translated as sphere.

These are translations. Translations. Translations of ancient words written in languages that do not even exist in the same form today. Some of the prose are translated beautifully, and are lovely to read.

Some Christians say much of the content is metaphor. Some, like you I assume, take it all literally. Translations of translations of translations of ancient words. You find what you want to find in them, and you dismiss what you don't care for.

But to claim that a random word here or there, out of many tens of thousands of words, proves that these scriptures somehow reveal represent a scientific understanding of the world that could not have existed in that era, is simply absurd.

Oh my goodness! You're right. It is. I apologize. And doesn't it say lobsters instead of grasshoppers? I seem to be having difficulty finding the scriptures in Portuguese. Perhaps you will share that passage.

Spanish and Portuguese share a common route, but they have taken different paths, and become quite distinct languages. The Hebrew spoken today, and the Hebrew spoken in old testament days is probably about as similar as Spanish and Portuguese are today.

And yet your rely on modern Hebrew speakers to tell us what the ancient Hebrew said. Or we just forget about the Hebrew and go to the Latin, and assume the Latin is correct.

And you hang on every single word. Build your life around it. Think about it.

In portuguese the word used is not circle, it's the word "cúpula" & in Job 22:14 it's the word "abóbada". Here are their respective translations into english. Have fun.

lets look at that bible verse:

Quote

Thick clouds veil him, so he does not see us as he goes about in the vaulted heavens.

It is talking about the heavens, not the earth. And the word you are referring to is the "vaulted" bit.

The portuguese is irrelevant. The hebrew matters. the hebrew word is chuwg (this forum does not have the capacity for hebrew letters, so I use the english approximation). According to Strong's concordance, it means:

This fits with the prior link I gave. The vault or dome is a reference to the sky/ heaven, not the earth itself, which the hebrews believed was flat. The other word they used for the heavens was the "firmament", the imagery of which is a solid dome which covers a flat earth. Above the firmament is a celestial sea, which is from where rain comes. At least, according to hebrew mythology.